7/7/7 – Falling

The lovable Skylar M. Cates also tagged me for this game. A few days ago, I answered Amelia’s tag with some paragraphs from the recently released Love’s Nest. Yesterday, I answered Kade’s tag with some paragraphs from a current work in progress called Everything Is Yes. And today, I’ll answer Skylar’s tag with the opening scene of another work in progress currently titled Falling.

The rules: Go to Page 7, 70, or 170 of a current Work in Progress or recently published work and choose either the first complete paragraph or 7 lines of dialogue to share. Paste to FB and tag 7 other authors to do the same.

***

Source: Free Wallpapers

Angel wings aren’t easy to fold into the shape of human scapulae. But Michael is accustomed to the strain and hardly breaks a sweat. He forces the long primaries to bend into the upper wing coverts, and then, in moves like feathered origami, he tucks it all in again, before smoothing them under flawless human skin.

He glances in the modest hotel room’s bathroom mirror and pulls on the dark brown shirt that will set off his eyes, before running a hand through his blond, curly hair. The light of his angelic grace glows from his pores, too bright to escape notice, and with a small exertion of will he tamps it back.

Though human form is confining and uncomfortable, the time has long passed when dropping down in a blaze of angelic righteousness was appropriate. Now covert operations pay the dividends of souls delivered from jeopardy. Even if Michael’s skin feels too tight, and his wings are already aching, protection is his business and discomfort is a small sacrifice.

After tightening the laces on the leather, soft-soled Clarks he keeps for nights of trawling the bars of Mercy Street, he kneels by the sliding glass door of the balcony and looks up at the stars peeking out in the night sky. It’s a fallacy that heaven is up there somewhere. Heaven is everywhere all at once, and yet when Michael dons human skin, he finds his eyes drawn to the sky when he prays.

He rises. Time to go.

***

7/7/7 – Everything Is Yes

The amazing Kade Boehme also tagged me for this game. Yesterday, I answered Amelia’s tag with some paragraphs from the recently released Love’s Nest.  Today, I’ll answer Kade’s tag with some paragraphs from a current work in progress.

The rules:  Go to Page 7, 70, or 170 of a current Work in Progress or recently published work and choose either the first complete paragraph or 7 lines of dialogue to share. Paste to FB and tag 7 other authors to do the same.

Here are ten paragraphs from Everything Is Yes, a short story about diving into risk and fear. (Seven paragraphs didn’t seem to really capture the moment, so I broke the rules.)

***

He’d had the dreams his whole life, and they’d only ever stopped during his brief affair with David. At the time, Alex had thought it was because he’d discovered the truth about sex—it was fun, it was sometimes really good, but it was pedestrian, common, and every day.

He really wanted the kind of sex that transformed him—a phoenix from the flames.

“Yeah, that’s not how sex works,” Mandy said over her vodka tonic.

“Not with David, not with just anybody,” Alex admitted. His mind tumbled back into the dream he’d had the night before—strong arms, bristles from an unshaven face, darkness, and big hands. He’d given himself up to it entirely, body and soul, handing over his life to the hands of his partner, with no clear sense whether or not he’d get it back. “But when he comes for me, it will.”

“When who comes for you?”

“The man who makes me burn for him.” Alex always tried to remember what the man looked like, but he never could—he was just sound and touch. There was no face to search for in a crowded bar.

“You are so drunk,” Mandy replied.

And he was. But he still waited for the man who would set him aflame.

Mandy had never mentioned their conversation again, and Alex suspected she’d been too wasted to remember it. But when she harassed him to get laid, or when Alex pretended to ask himself just what was he waiting for—deep down he knew it was the dream man.

But now someone was reaching out into uncertainty, hoping by chance an answering hand— his hand—would reach back and grab hold.

***

7/7/7 – Love’s Nest by Leta Blake & Keira Andrews

The awesome Amelia Gormley  tagged me for this game.

The rules:  Go to Page 7, 70, or 170 of a current Work in Progress or recently published work and choose either the first complete paragraph or 7 lines of dialogue to share. Paste to FB and tag 7 other authors to do the same.

Here are seven paragraphs from page 70 of Love’s Nest, released yesterday, and soon to be available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Sony, and other online stores.

***

Cover by Dar Albert.

“While it’s true that what I do know I’m enamored of, I fear these feelings are based in something not entirely real.”

Ópalo looked queasy. The birds clicked and made barking noises of agitation.

Mateo swallowed against the odd sense that he was telling a lie, even though every word he said was true.

“This is real. And I believe you will choose it. You will choose me.” Ópalo’s hands shook, but he seemed convinced of his own words.

The shimmer of Ópalo’s eyes pulled at Mateo. He felt rather convinced himself, which was deliriously ridiculous and deliciously reassuring all at once. Still, he couldn’t keep his mind from supplying an argument. “For all your talk of choice, telling me not to eat the fairy cakes so I can be completely free to come and go as I like, where is your own choice in all of this?”

“What do you mean?”

“Only that you’ve waited for your ‘bride’ your whole life, and now that I’ve arrived, you’ve accepted me without a second thought. How can you be so certain I’m the man for you? You might not even like me once you’ve known me more than a day or two.”

***

Love’s Nest is inspired by The Twelve Dancing Princesses and explores, in part, the function of destiny in fairy tales, especially when one of the heroes doesn’t believe in fate or love at first sight.